Lame Adventure 155: Insult to Misery

Since the Eastern seaboard has been pummeled with a fifth snowstorm in the first month of winter, with more surely to follow, the time has come for the silly statistic, a claim that is blathered solely to blow the average Joe or Joe-ette’s mind. For example, last June, on Day 63 of the Gulf Oil Spill, CBS News reported that the spill would fill 9,200 living rooms. Naturally I felt immense relief knowing that my home would be spared since it’s a living room-less studio apartment. How that calculation was determined would be another report in itself. I hope that either the Onion or Saturday Night Live tackles that story soon.

Today’s silly stat comes courtesy of ABC News blandly handsome correspondent Jeremy Hubbard who reported on Thursday evening that so much snow has fallen over New York City in the past month; it’s enough to fill 1000 Empire State buildings.

The son of Mother Hubbard with his producer standing in the background, who's either the smallest man working in network news, or a tool to illustrate a point that this mountain of plowed snow could fill Neptune.

Real deal silly stat.

Aside from wondering why anyone would want to know that the Empire State Building could pack the past month of snow one thousand times, all anyone who lives in the Big Apple needs to do is walk out the door and look around. There are miles of snow everywhere. Who needs to know how many skyscrapers, golf courses, or used car lots it can fill?

The look of ugh.

Where'd the sidewalk go?

Suck morning.

Lambs to slaughter entering West 72nd Street subway station.

With my naked eye, as far as I can see, I see snow everywhere I look. I get it. There’s a gargantuan amount of snow out there. If I hit my head on a low hanging air conditioner, knocked myself out, and fell face forward into a snow bank in the middle of the night, I’d probably wake up dead, possibly with a Friedrich logo partially tattooed across my forehead.

There’s so much snow, some of it was even in my apartment when I left my window a tad too open during the fourth storm two weeks ago. It was not enough to fill the entirety of my modest digs, but it was annoying and rather snarky.

Furthermore, I do not need to know how the size of the small toxic lake currently floating in front of the West 72nd Street subway turnstiles compares to 987 sixteen ounce Starbucks Grande soy lattes. I just know from entering and exiting that turnstile that it’s another snowstorm-related butt-pain I, and thousands of other rush hour commuters like me, would prefer to live without.

Heading to Hell.

Lake Pea Soup

One silly stat that anyone has yet to measure is the steam generated by grousing New Yorkers riding public transit. My guess is that the hot vapor we emitted en masse as we exited that uptown express 2 train when it went out of service at 14th Street Thursday night was enough to launch a rocket into the next galaxy. In addition, we could have collectively fueled the rocket’s return to earth in time for a monsoon-like spring. Maybe it would behoove me to price wet suits now.